Drury names David Manuel, chancellor at LSU at Alexandria, its next president

Oct. 31, 2012

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Drury University this morning named David P. Manuel, chancellor of Louisiana State University at Alexandria, its next president.

“The board has already set a goal that it wants to see increased national distinction,” Manuel said at press conference at Drury today.

Drury’s Board of Trustees met Oct. 24-26 and selected Manuel, who was one of two finalists.

“We were delighted to hear the news,” Manuel said.

Contract negotiations were completed by Saturday, Oct. 27, said Lynn Chipperfield, chairman of Drury’s Board of Trustees. Manuel officially starts June 1. He said he will be on campus intermittently before then for board meetings and university events.

Chipperfield would not reveal the length of the contract or Manuel’s compensation. Drury is a private school and traditionally does not disclose that information.

“He understands Drury,” Chipperfield said of Manuel. “I think he embodies the sort of culture that Drury represents. His academic and leadership credentials are impeccable.

“What really carried the day was his experience at St. Mary’s, which is very comparable to Drury,” Chipperfield said. Manuel was at St. Mary’s University, a private school in San Antonio, Texas, for 18 years prior to becoming chancellor at LSUA.

Manuel said he favors an approach to higher education that mixes a strong liberal arts education with a strong professional studies program. He said Drury fits that mold. The school, for example, offers a master’s in business administration.

Manuel said it is too early to talk about specific goals for the university or to elaborate on the goal of “increased national distinction.”

“Drury has a great reputation and should not be afraid to say that,” Manuel said.

He said he and his wife, Betty Coe, have chosen to live in the President’s House on campus. The house has not been used as a residence since at least June 2007, when Todd Parnell, a Drury grad with a home in Springfield, was named interim. In January 2008 Parnell was named president.

“We want to be part of the campus,” Manuel said. “We are excited about living there.”

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Parnell said he will work closely with Manuel to make the transition smooth. Parnell, who is 65, announced in November 2011 he would retired at the end of May 2013.

Mike Shirley, director of Drury’s Breech School of Business, said Manuel has extensive background as a faculty member, an academic and as an administrative leader.

“He has a strong academic background and should bring that experience to his position every day,” Shirley said.

Manuel, 65, has been chancellor at LSUA, since June 2008. Since he started in Alexandria, a city of about 50,000, Louisiana lawmakers facing budget woes have dramatically cut funding for public higher education.

Mary Boone Treuting, a professor of psychology at LSU-A, said Manuel has done a remarkable job of managing the university in an era of diminished public funding.

“The state has had financial issues,” said Treuting, president of the search committee that brought Manuel to LSU-A. “We have not been able to have raises on our campus but that is not his fault. It is the entire state.”

“He has done that primarily by not refilling positions and not expanding programs,” she said. “He has really cared about the people here.”

Treuting said Manuel helped LSUA weather tough economic times in part through his training as an economist — he has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Mississippi in Oxford — and in part through his fundraising abilities.

Manuel is adept at bringing donations to the university because he and his wife, Betty Coe, have become involved in the Alexandria community, she said.

“He got himself out there to interact with the movers and shakers,” Treuting said.

Manuel, for example, started a black-tie scholarship gala that raises funds for student scholarships, she said.

“I think Drury is a lucky school to get him. I am sorry to see him leave,” she said.

While at Alexandria, Manuel has strengthened the school’s foundation board, said Teresa Seymour, LSUA’s registrar and executive director of enrollment management.

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“We are losing a really good leader,” she said. “I think you all will be very pleased. He has been tremendous with the community, very good at articulating a vision for the campus.

“I would be lying if I said morale was extremely high right now,” she said. “No one has received a pay raise in five years.”

But Manuel is not to blame, she said.

He has helped employee morale, to a degree, through his transparency in management, she said. He has monthly meetings with faculty in which anyone can ask any question, she said.

Manuel was one of two finalists at Drury. The other was David Steele, 71, dean of the College of Business and the Lucas Graduate School of Business at San Jose State University in California.

A third finalist, David McInally, 52, recently accepted the post of president of Coe College — a small, private, liberal arts school in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. McInally is executive president and treasurer at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa. He starts at Coe on July 1.

Chipperfield, Drury’s board chairman, said all three candidates were considered strong options. Chipperfield was asked if faculty members had a preference for either Manuel or Steele. He said no.

Drury does not have a Faculty Senate but did have faculty members serve on the search committee.

Jacques Roy, mayor of Alexandria, described Manuel as “circumspect, measured and careful.”

“To his friends and colleagues, on issues that he was involved in, he was a very frank adviser in the room” Roy said. “He did not approach things without being circumspect about the chess moves down the road. Drury’s gain is our loss.”

When Manuel visited Drury on Oct. 5 he mentioned the decline in state support of higher education in Louisiana. He said that when he started as chancellor in Alexandria 60 percent of the school’s revenue was state appropriations. The figure is now 40 percent.

Sixty-five candidates applied for the job. Drury, founded in 1873, is a private, liberal arts school with a day-school enrollment of 1,607. LSU-A’s enrollment is 2,612.

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Manuel will be Drury’s 17th president.

About David P. Manuel

Born in Thibodaux, La., and grew up in Erath, La.

He attended Immaculata Seminary in Lafayette, La., where he considered the priesthood. He earned an associate’s degree of philosophy.

In 1967 he received a bachelor’s in philosophy from Pontifical College Josephinum in Worthington, Ohio.

In 1970 he earned a bachelor’s in economics from Nicholls State University in Thibodaux.

He earned a master’s (1972) and a Ph.D. (1975) in economics at the University of Mississippi, where he met his wife, Betty, who is originally from Memphis.

He spent 16 years in the business department teaching economics at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He was dean his final four years there.

He spent 18 years at St. Mary’s University at San Antonio, Texas, a private school. He was dean of the business school and then vice president of academic affairs.

In June 2008 he became chancellor of the University of Louisiana at Alexandria. The school celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2010. It was a two-year school until awarding its first bachelor’s degrees in December 2003.